Leaving me is not an option
by Hellen says what's up
Summary: Combeferre finds a suicide note from Enjolras lying on his bed. After searching and searching, the Amis assume Enjolras is dead…five years later however, the impossible occurs.
1. Falling is just like flying

Enjolras stood, barefoot, by the edge of the bridge, his hands gripped upon the wet railing. The wind whisked through the air with certain viciousness, biting at his hands and the open collar of his neck. The young man felt his entire body go stiff as a shiver of uncertainty crept up his spine. The cold was haunting, and yet somewhat comforting at the same time. The icy wind helped numb the fear…perhaps it would numb the pain. Enjolras had always wondered whether dying was as simple as closing your eyes and counting to ten. After his father had passed away, his mother had simply told him that he'd gone to sleep. It sounded so painless…and somewhat inviting.

As his mind continued to wonder, he gripped ever so tightly onto the rusting copper rail as he pushed himself over to stand upon the stone ledge of the bridge. Climbing over…now that was easy. It was the letting go of the rail that would be the main challenge. Waiting…wondering…

Enjolras stared down into the dying waves that formed in the dark abyss beneath the bridge. He wondered if he'd freeze to death before he drowned…though, if he managed to hit his head on the way down, it might just make the whole process easier. Looking down at the maddening bed of water, Enjolras let himself breathe for a moment and stared up at the pitch black sky, trying to picture it more as flying than falling.

_Don't be a coward…this is what you need Enjolras. This is where you belong._

Enjolras felt his grip on the railing loosen by the slightest touch, when an unrecognised voice behind him spoke with a strange calmness.

"Young man, what are you doing up there?" Enjolras turned awkwardly, his hand still gripping the rail. A tall man in a black top-hat and matching coat stood on the other side of the railing. He seemed somewhat familiar, though Enjolras couldn't recall ever meeting a man such as him.

Enjolras turned away, his heart rate increasing either from shock or from pure embarrassment…though, he wasn't sure why he felt embarrassed. "Nothing, sir…"

"Are you sure about that?" the man seemed to keep his cool, though, he eyed Enjolras with a hint of anxiety.

"Please, sir, it's none of your concern." Enjolras was fully aware of how much of a lunatic he must have looked…not that it mattered. "Could you just…"

The man looked him up and down, taking a step closer to him, though, Enjolras hardly noticed. "Is…something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Why don't you step back over the railing, young man…it's unhealthy for you to be spending your time out here it this ghastly weather."

Enjolras felt his hand shake, feeling as though he were moments away from fainting, just from the turn of events. "…I don't think I can sir." He replied under his breath. The man simply stared, unsure of what to say, or what to do. "I'm tired, sir. I simply…can't."

"Tired of what? Surely, being tired doesn't necessarily mean you must end your life." The man spoke, though, trying to keep his voice low, in order to keep control of this situation. Worst case scenario, the young man lets go of the railing, falls to his death, and is never seen again…being a man of God, he couldn't just walk away from this boy without putting up a fight.

"With all due respect sir, you couldn't possibly understand what I'm going through at this moment in my life." Enjolras said, turning his head over his shoulder, though, not looking directly at the man.

"Young man, God did not create us, just so we could end our own lives by jumping off bridges."

"Then why did he create me?" Enjolras asked, louder than intended, though, it allowed him to let off some steam.

There was a moment of silence. Silence so tense that a single sound could have killed it. "Well, I wouldn't know. That's for you to decide, my boy." The man still spoke with such an even tone, even though; Enjolras was about _this_ close to letting his hand slip from the railing.

"…I thought I knew what my purpose in life was…but I was wrong…the truth is that God never intended to make me. I thought I were to become a man who would one day, lead a group of revolutionaries to free the world from the hands of the evil…but it's impossible…and who am I to send men to their deaths? I have no purpose so clearly God made a mistake…"

"God makes no mistakes." He said simply. "Only a fool would believe so…if you truly believe you have no purpose, then you practically insult God's very name…God doesn't want this of you. Please, for the love of our father, just, don't." Enjolras' breathing faltered as the man's words sunk in. Enjolras suddenly came to realisation that he was standing on the edge of a bridge, with nothing but the strength of his arms holding him from falling. His heart jumped at the sudden feeling and held his grip on the railing. For several moments, he just stood and thought. "Would you like a hand?" Enjolras found he was unable to reply, so he merely nodded.

He turned awkwardly from the river, feeling as though he were about to be sick. The man reached a sturdy hand towards him and Enjolras took it, barely able to stand on his own two feet. Gradually, he made his way over the railing where he practically collapsed from shock, fear, pain, regret…and confusion.

TBC


	2. Try to keep your head held high

**I CAN'T WRITE THIS! ****AAARRRRGH!**

**Ugh, you have no idea how much stress this one story has caused me! GOD, I swear, I tried my best. I CAN'T WRITE SADNESS! IT'S NOT WORKING! This is all I could do, sadly. I HAD NO IDEA WRITING ABOUT LOSS COULD BE SO HARD! ****GAAAAH!**** I really did try my best, but I CAN'T DO IT! I hope this isn't too terrible. I spent about three days just staring at the blank word document. I've got about five different drafts of this ONE CHAPTER.**

**This is the best I could do. I'M SO SORRY.**

* * *

Combeferre sat by the window of Le Musian, staring through the new sky of day. The morning lashes of sunlight that rose into the blue canvas stung his tired eyes, though; he didn't care much for the pain. He simply stared…and watched as the beautiful light painted the sky with wonderful colours of orange and red. The air was set to a magnificent gold as the sun continued to paint through the canvas, spreading its colour like a bird does its wings. To Combeferre, a sunrise was just another everyday occurrence…but to Enjolras, it was much more. He saw it as a new day about to be born from the depths of the old world. He saw it as a fresh start…a new beginning. To him, it radiated so much beauty, that he himself were mesmerised…

…_Now if only he was here to see it…_

Les Amis had been searching all night, and yet, not a single trace of him was found. It was as though he'd disappeared of the face of the earth…and perhaps he had. After all, Enjolras had always been the adventurous type. Combeferre placed his hand on his forehead, taking a moment to breathe.

No one could deny it…the Musian did feel much barer without Enjolras standing upon its ground. They did not sing without him there. They did not laugh without him there. They did not drink without him there. It was just hollow and unbearable silence.

Courfeyrac stood at the other end of the room, his back pressed against the wall and his eyes closed. For the first time in his life, he found himself lost for words. Enjolras was by far the most courageous man he knew. He was a man of marble, stronger than any other with a heart of fire and words of freedom that lit passion into the eyes of man…is it possible for marble to just crack? It had struck him unexpectedly…until that moment, he'd always seen Enjolras as some invisible man of gold…but in fact, Enjolras was merely human. Perhaps he'd taken his courage a step too far. A man can only hold a weight for so long, before his bones begin to break.

He wouldn't care to admit it, but Courfeyrac had actually been having a constant pain within his chest. It struck him right in the heart, like a needle or a knife. He hadn't ever experienced anything like it. The feeling that he was missing something within his heart was truly overwhelming. It made him want to break down and just cry…but he still had the asset to contain himself…for now at least.

"I put it upon myself…" Combeferre virtually whispered, unable to tare his eyes away from the sky, afraid that the light might disappear. "I put it upon myself to watch him. I put it upon myself to make sure he stayed sane. I'm meant to be the one who pulls him from the ground, not let him fall-"

"You can't blame yourself for what he did." Courfeyrac interrupted. "He made his own decision…whether you like it or not, he's gone." Combeferre felt his blood turn cold as he thought through the past forty-eight hours. For a moment, Combeferre just sat in silence. "Perhaps you should go home. This is simply too much for one man alone to take Mon Ami. I'd care to walk you home if you'd—"

"He's an idiot!" Courfeyrac shot back as Combeferre stood and hit his fist against the clear glass of the window, causing a spiral of cracks to form in the top right corner of the glass. Courfeyrac stared in shock as Combeferre stared down at the floor, his breathing heavy and uneven. His body was shaking uncontrollably and he kept catching on his own breath. "He's a mindless imbecile!" he felt tears begin to brim his eyes, though, he couldn't care less for them anymore. "Enjolras is meant to be the one who never falters! I believed him to be strong…and then he just gives up! He expects me to just forget his existence! He's a coward who can't face the world, that's what he is! A downright disgrace! I hate the man! I hate him for putting false hope in my eyes! He belongs in hell!" Combeferre violently struck another hit to the window, causing the cracks in the glass to spread like a spider's web, about a few more hits away from collapsing. Before he could strike the window again, Courfeyrac ran to his side and restrained him by his wrists. Combeferre broke down into tears. Courfeyrac comforted him, and himself.

* * *

Enjolras woke to blinding light leaking in from the open windowsill. It took him a moment or two to focus his vision. His head was pounding as his heart rate beat at an abnormal pace. He found his mouth was dry as sandpaper and his lips were cracked from dehydration. He was lying upon an old maroon bed made from solid oak. The matrass felt stiff against his back and the sheets that lay above him were paper thin. He began to sit up slowly, minding the noisy bed springs as he heaved himself to a sitting position. The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer wearing his own clothes. His old shirt and black slacks had been replaced with a crisp white shirt, which was a few sizes too large, and a pair of baggy grey trousers.

The walls were layered with a strange floral coloured paper with hand painted red and white roses dancing upon the surface. Aside from the bed, there was only two pieces of furniture in the room. An old cabinet painted pure white, and the wooden bedside table that sat on the left side of his bed against the wall. On top of the bedside sat his rusted silver watch with a web of cracks springing from the right corner of the glass. Through complete and utter habit, he reached for his watch and began to fumble to strap it back onto his right wrist, using the golden streak of light from the window to help him fasten the strap.

As he was doing so, Enjolras heard faint footsteps nearing through the hallway. There was a light knock at the door, so quiet that if the room hadn't been so soundless, Enjolras would have never heard it. A few seconds later, the door was opened. The rusty hinges creaked open as the man from the night before paced through the doorway. "Ah, good. You're awake. I was beginning to fear you never would." The man dressed in similar clothes to the night before, aside from a change of shirt. He held a floral china mug of warm tea in his left hand. He cautiously handed the mug to Enjolras, who didn't hesitate to swig it down his throat, feeling grateful for the warmth it provided. "Forgive me for the accommodations. This is all I can offer you. It's not first rate, but it keeps a roof over my head."

Enjolras nodded, feeling a tinge of awkwardness as he sat in the bed. He placed the mug onto the bedside and looked up at the man. "Um…Monsieur…"

"Fauchelevent." He smiled.

"Monsieur Fauchelevent…I, uh, never thanked you…for saving my life." Enjolras' voice lacked its usual confidence, which was fairly out of character for a man such as him. "My mind was just…in the clouds...I'm sorry."

Fauchelevent couldn't help but pity the boy. So young, and so lost. He seemed to not know his place in the world…he wanted to know why a boy such as himself would wish to end his own life. "I wish to speak with you more…but I'm afraid I haven't the time. I'll leave you in the capable hands of my daughter. She's asleep at the moment, but I shouldn't be too long. Just…try to rest, my boy."

As Fauchelevent turned to exit the room, Enjolras spoke once more. "Monsieur…I really am…sorry."

He simply grinned. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I just do whatever a man should. Now, rest."

TBC


	3. weeks move to months

**Pleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillme**

**This is really…really bad. I tried, I really did. I honestly tried, but this is just…I don't even know.**

**Not proof read (because I'm a lazy potato)**

* * *

_Several months later…_

Jehan and Grantaire sat upon the silver cobble steps that lead up to the stone bridge, stretching gracefully over the scenic waters of the seine. They had been sitting in silence for quite a while now. But it was a pure kind of silence. The silence you get when you need to feel as though you're not alone in this Godforsaken world. This form of silence can only be shared between two individuals who are, in a way, connected, bound by soul emotion and thought. Not that they'd ever admit it, but Jehan and Grantaire were able to share this type of rare connection for reasons not even they could understand.

The clouds hung from the blue sheet of unblemished sky like a set or a painting, almost as if it weren't truly there, like everything Jean saw before him was merely an elusion created to keep his mind within sanity. Everything seemed so surreal, so idiosyncratic. It felt almost as though the young poet were seeing the world in a whole different light.

"Do you believe in God, Prouvaire?" Grantaire had broken the silence between the two. Jean continued to stare up at the sky, as though he was pondering the question, but in reality the answer was simple enough.

"I don't know what I believe in anymore." he replied, though to Grantaire's surprise, he had pulled an smile across his lips, however, it was no longer a smile that beamed youth and radiance as it once had, but a smile that merely showed a man who'd experienced pain for the first time. "It's hard to decipher my true feelings to what I want to believe and what I actually believe."

"I believe that if God truly were in existence, then he wouldn't have taken light from darkness." Though Jehan hadn't always understood Grantaire to the full extent, he felt a somewhat comfort to see an ounce of humanity within the cynic.

The sun had begun its decent from the highest point within the sky. Prouvaire had wished for the golden warmth of sun to stay forever, though, he knew all things pure eventually have to die. It was a natural fact that perfection is a mere flaw in itself. "You never believed in God from the start." Jehan stated, though not taking his eyes off the sky.

"I may not have believed in God, but I still believed in something…and now that something is gone forever." Grantaire's voice spoke with a hollow tone, almost as though his very soul had been torn from his body. "He's a fool you know."

Jehan looked at the man in confusion. "I'm not sure I fully understand."

"Enjolras. He has no morals. He's a fool for thinking this world could possibly stay the same without him. He's a fool for believing that no one would care if he just gave into the weight on his back. He's a fool for even trying in the first place…pure idiocy that I never expected from _him._" Grantaire felt his blood turn cold, suddenly feeling rather nauseous.

"I don't think it's quite fair to insult the man who is no longer here. Enjolras was a great man, but no matter how much you believed in him, it would never make him immortal. You see him as a God, but he's simply a human with the courage of a God. I would crack under the pressure, as would anyone. The way I see it, Enjolras was the utmost, greatest leader a band of mindless students could ask for, and God, here you are insulting him for what?" Grantaire didn't reply. He simply stared at the ground, wondering if he stared long enough, would he fall through. Sadly, he had no such luck.

* * *

"Not that I don't appreciate your concern for me, but it's really quite unnecessary." Enjolras batted Cosette's hand away from his forehead in irritation. Cosette frowned at him as he made his way across the room to grab his black jacket that rested neatly against the edge of the hand-weaved rocking chair.

"Honestly Julien, you shouldn't be leaving the house if you're ill. You'll freeze to death." Cosette wined, attempting to usher the man back off to bed.

"How many times must I tell you, it's just Enjolras." He stated in slight annoyance. It'd been about three months since Monsieur Fauchelevent and his daughter took in a lost revolutionary, gave him the gift of food, shelter and a bed to sleep in.

And, although Enjolras would never care to admit to it, it was the greatest gift any man had ever given him. After almost ending his own life, he found himself unable to go back to the life he once had. He couldn't possibly show his face to the men who once saw him as fearless. He didn't deserve such a title. They thought him dead, and that's how it would stay.

"Well, at least tell Papa where you're going." Cosette said with a glint of concern. Enjolras and Cosette had grown somewhat close. It was expected, after all, Enjolras was practically the only company Cosette got throughout the day. He acted as a somewhat brother to her, and Fauchelevent was perfectly fine with that. Cosette had grown happier, and she had become livelier.

Enjolras simply nodded as Cosette adjusted the collar of his coat. "What's wrong?"

"You're not wearing red today?" She asked.

Enjolras seemed to laugh out of the corner of his mouth. "I think that old things seen the last of its days. I'll have to get a new one by the winter."

Cosette hummed. "It's a shame. Red seems to suit you."

Enjolras momentarily hesitated, though it was hardly noticeable. "I know it does, but every color eventually fades."

* * *

"For god's sake Lads, we've been over this." Courfeyrac stated, bringing his glass down against the edge of the tabletop with a loud clank, spilling some excess alcohol upon the wooden tabletop. Courfeyrac sat informally slouched over the table with Pontmercy and Grantaire opposite him. Feuilly stood behind Marius' chair. Combeferre sat between the two sides, a book resting in his hand, as he appeared to be paying not the slightest attention to the display before him. "The friends of the ABC are over."

"Okay, I understand that Enjolras' passing has created undeniable tension between all of us, and there will never come a day when we don't greave his death." Feuilly said solemnly. "But don't you think he would have wanted us to continue his dream? Day and night, all that man ever talked about was his vision of a new world and now you're just going to let all of it disappear?"

"Enjolras didn't value his dreams. He saw through it, and so he lost his own life to his own moral thought." Courfeyrac slurred, the alcohol running slightly dry.

"Oh come on. That letter was utter shit!" Grantaire huffed in pure exasperation. "Do you really think Enjolras would actually want his dream to die? He's no longer here, which is all the more reason to let his revolution live on."

"Why are you even here, Grantaire? You never believed in what our leader stood for, so why don't you just go home?" Courfeyrac stood from his chair to meet eye to eye with the man.

"I stay because this fucked up revolution is the only thing I have left of Apollo, and I'm not just going to sit here and let you kill that as well!" Grantaire seemed to have cracked, unable to contain the rest of his sanity. Oddly enough, Grantaire had been affected rather severely after hearing of Enjolras' death. He'd moved out of town for the first month, and then moved in with Prouvaire, who seemed to be the source of understanding.

"You haven't any idea what Enjolras is or ever was. You couldn't possibly say such words about a man you hardly know, R." Courfeyrac hissed, shaking every ounce of pain that hit him off of his shoulder.

"Enough, I've heard enough." Combeferre snapped his book shut and placed it upon the table. He stood up and seemed somewhat distressed, like he'd taken off his mask of serenity to reveal his true emotion. "Enjolras is gone. There's nothing to say of it. However, now that he's resting, it makes me the new leader of the friends of the ABC. As new leader, I propose this. Every Tuesday night, there will be an open house on current affairs concerning the wellbeing of the poor citizens of Paris. All those who wish to attend may do so. I'm not saying that Les Amis is resuming. I'm merely proposing a startup line. This conversation is over, all of you go home and speak nothing of it."

* * *

_Jehan had been absent throughout the entire night. Why? Over the past two months, Prouvaire had been laboring over a new novel he'd started, which he'd dedicated to his leader. You see Jehan had never before experienced the pain of losing someone who'd felt dear to him. And, in all honesty, Enjolras had been a great role model for the young poet. After hearing of his death, he wasn't quite sure how he was meant to deal with all of these emotions flooding into his mind at the very same time._

_So, likewise, he found himself expressing it though pen and paper._

_And soon enough, the young poets call brought back something he never expected._

* * *

**TBC (I guess?)**


End file.
